Spring 1985, a boxing training center in Incheon. People were gathering around a sandbag. Fast punches and brilliant body movements. The audience watching this high school boxing training was filled with admiration.

The time when boxing was the most popular sport. Boy Chae Jemin was a star in the gymnasium. He owns every prize for all competitions he joined. The trophies he received was hung on the entrance to the gymnasium. Juniors thought of him as a living “textbook of boxing.” However, after sometime being absent, young Jemin didn’t find the gym satisfied him. 남의 속도 모르는 찬사라고 생각했다. He blamed it on his skills that wasn’t as remarkable as before. 많아지는 잡생각. For sometime, his concentration power had gone from his outstretched fist.

He was in junior high when he first put his hands into boxing gloves. He could have also done other sports. It’s because he’s got a lot of scoutings for various fields of sports. Tall figure and wide shoulders. 또래 친구들보다 두 배가량 큰 손은 어떤 운동에도 재목으로 보였다.

The first sport he ever started was judo. His was talented. There was almost no other athletes who could blow him down the mat. But as time went by, he started to look other direction. He wanted to become a boxer like the athlete he saw on TV blowing off his foreign opponent, the champion of WBC light play Jang Jeong-Gu.

As he enters high school, his skills progresses that he was srong enough to level a fight with adult boxer. But as he enters the second year of high school, right when he was progressing the most, he stumbled upon a braking stone. His father passed away from hypertension paralysis. His father loved Chae Jemin so much. Despite the difficult circumstances, he unendedly supported his son who chose to be an athlete.

The emptiness his father had left took him to a long wandering. The days when he’d throw about his fist in and outside school, instead of in the boxing ring, increased. Several times his opponents would pass out from meeting his boxing-trained fist. 한바탕 소란 뒤 이들과 친구가 된 채제민은 he naturally became the leader of the bad students. The unfavorable incidents. His mother was called to come to school often, and one day, she started to frequent to police station.

“사춘기였던 탓에 어머니 말씀이 잔소리로 들렸다. 그 때 불효를 아직까지 뼈저리게 후회한다.”

“I was a teenager, my mother’s words were just just nagging for me. The regret I feel from that time still cuts deep into my heart.”

By the end of his wandering, he came back to the gym. It felt weird to put the gloves on again. The passion that he had before was no where to be found. It was no use even when he stood in front of a sandbag. All he saw was his reflection on the full-body mirror, his 10kg increased weight. 관장은 체급을 올려서라도 강행할 것을 주문했다. In boxing, you have to work manifold times harder even if you only step up one weight class. He only felt the dream to become the world champion slipping away. Chae Jemin took off his gloves quitely and packed his bag. A dream that ended in vain. But it wasn’t only darkness in his expression.

“그간 복싱에서 배운 인내로 모든 해낼 수 있을 것 같았다.”

“That time, I felt like I could do anything with the preserverance I learned from boxing.”

멀어지는 체육관에서 얻은 교훈. 그것은 이후 새로운 꿈을 쫒는 발판이 됐다. 바로 음악이었다.

A lesson he learned from the gym that he had departed. It became a stepping stonewhen he went to follow his new dream. It was music.

고등학교를 갓 졸업한 채제민이 연주발표회에서 드럼을 치고 있다.

=Chae Jemin playing the drum in a musical competition, just as he graduated from high school.=